Medical terrorism in 1862 / by William Bayes.

  • Bayes, William.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical terrorism in 1862 / by William Bayes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    coming to an agreement, but the declining a case should come after such a consultation and only when agreement was proved impossible. Indeed, in the present day, the chief use of a consultation is to determine some difficult point of diagnosis, and in this, as it involves pathological and physiological dicussion only, the physicians of both schools could meet in accord. The refusal to meet, in these cases, can only proceed from the spirit of “ trades-union persecution from an attempt to put down those who practise homoeopathy by making their path difficult, and hy holding over the public the threat that they must expect no further assistance in a difficult case, if they call in a physician who practises homoeopathy. But persecution never yet trod out the flame of truth. Listen to the words of the Editor of the “ London Medical Review,” an allopathic journalist. He says, in a letter published in this very number of the “ British Journal” (May 24), “It is idle for us to contend that homoeopathy is a subject we all ought to ignore, right or wrong, it has somehow or other got a hold on the public mind which it is vain to dispute, as it is con¬ stantly obtruded upon us in practice in a way that is sin¬ gularly unpleasant. I venture to say, there is scarcely a medical man in the kingdom who has not felt the influence of this ‘ delusion on his professional income; and it, therefore, behoves us all to look at this question in some way different, to that in which it has hitherto been regarded; for I fear that the f delu¬ sion is rather increasing than otherwise. “ Now, sir, what has been the conduct of the medical press on the question for years past ? Has it not been one continued tn ade of illiberal persecution ?—and what has been the re¬ sult? Why, as ever happens in all persecutions, the persecuted excite the greatest amount of attention and sympathy.” It is cheering to hear the “ notes of nobler song ” from the hitherto discordant ranks of our literary opponents. Fourthly—It scarcely is needful to do more than to point out that, whatever may be the feelings of the editor of the “British Medical Journal, or those of the Cambridge doctors, they clearly have no right to dictate to Mr. Adams what is his line of duty. This is trades-unionism in its worst phase. The individual
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